


I'll See You In My Dreams

by Yoko_Fujioka



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash, it seems pretty obvious they like each other tho, midotakaweek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-10
Updated: 2015-06-10
Packaged: 2018-04-03 19:55:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4112992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yoko_Fujioka/pseuds/Yoko_Fujioka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>MidoTakaWeek Day 1: Smile</p><p>It was just another art project, sketching your partner's likeness to the best of your ability, but somehow a dream Kazunari sees manages to make it all the more complicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll See You In My Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Not too much happy ranting today, I'm just generally unimpressed and disappointed both in myself and this fic.
> 
> Ugh.

Finally after what seemed like a millennia of waiting the bell finally rung ending second period. The room quickly was abuzz with noise that rose from small mumbling to the average level of fifteen or so students talking all at once and trying to be heard over each other, almost everybody either getting up or swiveling around in their chairs in order to talk to their friends and neighbors. Suddenly in the front of the room Masaaki Nakatani slammed both palms on his desk, making several people jump but for the most part the room quieted back down, all eyes on him. The ageing coach sighed at the looks of impatience shot at him but spoke in English none the less (class might have been over but that didn’t mean he was done teaching). “Next period’s art class will be outside, so gather up your materials and join Mr. Tanaka on the front lawn. And don’t even think about being late!” He barked, thumping the spine of the class roster on his desk and seemingly looking every single student in the eye before finally declaring “class dismissed!” and walking out, sliding the door securely behind him.

“Hey Shin-chan, any ideas on who you want to partner up with for the art project?” Takao teased lightly, swiveling slightly at the hips so that he could rest his arm on the back of his chair and look behind him without having to fully turn around.

“Ah yes, I had a very easy time doing that math project with Yamada while you were sick, so I was going to partner up with her again, as should be obvious.” Midorima spoke coolly with a stone-cold face, and it was this that made Takao freeze, more than slightly shocked. The more people Midorima became friendly with, the less he was going to rely on and spend time with him, right? Yamada was their age so she didn’t quite fit the “older” part of his lady-like type, but Takao could already imagine them growing closer, dating, _falling madly in love with each other_ …

Without him realizing Midorima fluidly stood up behind him, gently pushing his chair back under his desk before neatly organizing his art supplies and walking, not to the front of the class where the aforementioned class rep was talking with a few other girls, but straight down the path that lead from his desk to the door at the back of their class.

“Oi, Bakao, are you coming or not?” The green giant stopped right in front of the open door, looking over his shoulder to call to the other. The mere mention of his name had garnered the ravenette’s attention, so at least he didn’t have to ask Midorima to repeat himself, because god knows he hated having to. Still Takao sat there in shock for a minute more, the words circling around in his brain on loop until he finally just laughed, high-pitched and almost hysterical, at the irony of it all.

_‘Shin-chan actually teasing me, I never thought I’d see the day! Does he have feelings for me, too? Is this how he would try to show me?? Wait, Kazu, you just got overly excited nearly a minute ago because you let your imagination run away with you. Calm down and think rationally.’_

Feeling more than seeing the giant carrot impatiently tapping his foot for him to hurry up, Takao managed to laugh a bit more lightly, almost naturally, as he haphazardly shoved all his stuff into his bag with a brush of his hand, pushing his chair back in the general direction of his desk before walking to follow the taller boy, hands clasped behind his head like always, even with his bag weighing his hands down.

 

*

“Takao, would you _sit still_?!” Midorima demanded in annoyance, glaring over the spiraled rim of his sketchbook until Takao just entirely stopped caring, throwing himself backwards onto the soft grass with his limbs spread out like a starfish, his art supplies landing who-knows-where after he let go of them on the way down. In front of him Midorima grunted but respectfully placed his own notebook on the grass beside him as well, looking impatient when he glanced back over. (Most people wouldn’t have been able to see his face while lying down, but the greenette must’ve known that he had activated his hawk eye just in order to enjoy the nice late spring weather, or else he has just accepted that the PG knew his patterns well enough to anticipate everything he did.)

“I would appreciate being able to finish this now and not take away from my designated studying time tonight, as should be obvious.” He decided to make known, making Takao roll his eyes slightly at this dang dork and his goody-too-shoes-ness. Hopefully Midorima hadn’t seen that, though, (although he might not have been the only one to be able to foresee the other’s reactions), so Takao just laughed, sounding much more natural now although to his own ears each and every attempt was starting to get a little grating. It had been a while since he had realized the depths of his feelings, so you’d think he’d have gotten over the initial awkwardness, but nooo.

Reaching his hands out towards the sky before dipping them down towards his knees and using the momentum to pull himself back up into a sitting position, Takao reached down to twirl some of the thicker stalks of grass between his pointer finger and thumb, one leg bent at the knee with the foot flat on the ground while the other was folded under the arched thigh, pretty much only the side of his left foot touching the grass.

“Seriously though, Shin-chan, can’t you make a more relaxed face or something?? I can’t draw you like this, my muse isn’t inspired at all!” He proclaimed unhappily, finally ripping out some of the grass and throwing it in the air above his head in disbelief at the end of his tirade. Midorima on the other hand just shook his head, silently retorting that a partner that couldn’t sit still was much, much worse. Needless to say Takao pouted at the mere implication, but he could have sworn he saw a smile-perhaps it was a smirk, really, but he swore it looked vaguely tender-on the greenette’s face before he covered it with his hand in order to adjust his glasses like usual.  


Hearing the teacher announce that they had half an hour left, Takao grudgingly picked his stuff back up and pulled his legs towards his chest in a make-shift easel, completely losing himself in sketching his partner’s face like he was supposed to.

(It felt strangely like Midorima was staring at him much more than was necessary for drawing a face he saw for most of the day, every single day, but Takao assumed he was just “doing his absolute best” like usual and tried to pay full attention to his own work.)  


*

When he and Midorima went upstairs to his room and the greenette immediately agreed to play video games without even taking out their notes first, Takao knew he was dreaming. He was surprised, however, that his dream-self reached for the puzzle game his friend liked without even looking at his usual favorites, let alone trying to coerce the grumpy boy to “at least _try_ them”. It kind of made him wonder how much the greenette had seeped into his subconscious.

From there the dream was almost dreadfully mundane, the two boys sitting on the carpeted floor no more than a foot or two away from the TV, Takao sitting crisscross-applesauce while to his right Midorima sat properly on his heels, not relaxing in the least despite the atmosphere.

Just like in real life, the greenette spent a good period of time making seemingly stupid mistakes, missing small combos in favor of pushing the small colored blocks on the other side of the screen. Just as Takao was about to make another small combo and sent a row or so of concrete his way, however, Midorima cleared his entire half of the screen with just one move, overtaking Takao’s side with concrete. He had lost the round in an instant. This happened over and over again until suddenly Takao remembered exactly why he usually tried to talk to other boy into playing a different type of game.

Hearing what he swore was a laugh and not just an exhalation of breath, Takao dropped the remote at his feet before just flopping over so that his head fell on the taller boy’s lap. Rolling over so that he was facing his temporary lap pillow and not the TV screen, Takao looked up and was about to complain about how impossibly, impossibly unfair his teammate was, when, not just the words, but even his breath was caught in his throat in an instant.

The green-haired boy was **smiling** , not a pompous smirk or even the kind of overly wide smile seen on teen girl’s magazines, but a small, almost soft one, his eyes seeming to crinkle at the corners in such a way that Takao began to wonder if it was that small detail, and not the smile itself, that made him think of his grandfather.

The way that his grandfather looked at his wife of fifty years like they were still newlyweds in the honeymoon stage. Or the way his dad looked at his mom after an impromptu waltz in the kitchen, his eyes sparkling with something that Takao had always identified as _absolute adoration and trust._

The dream ended there, but when Takao opened his eyes and stared at his ceiling for another hour or so, he was more aware of his pounding heart and bubbling feelings than he had ever been. Unable to calm himself down enough to go back to sleep just yet, the boy turned on his bedside lamp, scavenged for his sketchbook, and spent the rest of the night “fixing” the moody frown into the soft smile he had dreamed of seeing for god only knows how many nights now.

*

Needless to say upon actually realizing what he had done, he became too embarrassed to show it to his partner when his teacher called upon them to trade books before handing them in to him, pretending like he had left it in his gym locker and agreeing to meet Mr. Tanaka at the teacher’s lounge after classes to hand it in, instead. When he dashed in in a rush to make it to practice on time, however, he saw that very few teachers were there at the moment, one of the ones MIA of course being the one he needed.

Sincerely hoping that if he left it on the teacher’s desk nothing would happen to it (and that he wouldn’t lose credit for an assignment that he had actually done in case it was lost), Takao noticed that, in the upper right corner of the desk, his teacher had neatly stacked the assignments from all the classes. One of his (assumingly female) classmates had even drawn her male partner in what could only be described as a 70’s shoujo manga style, making him crack up at the overly sparkly eyes, huge eyelashes and girly screen tones (hand-drawn? That would be impressive, since it was being graded on effort, not talent, but she was obviously very good at it).

Suddenly in no real rush to get back to whatever amount of laps Coach Nakatani was going to assign him for being late to both class **and** practice today, Takao shifted his weight onto the other leg before picking up the stack and leafing through them. Some of them were so bad that they were laughable (not that he was really one to talk, with his skill level) but some were creative at the very least, and he was quite impressed with what his classmates could do or even come up with, copying or even parodying some very famous artists and styles.

Suddenly he noticed a sketch of someone he didn’t immediately recognize so, looking for whose it was, very nearly dropped the entire stack upon seeing the name “Midorima Shintaro” written so self-assuredly on a picture that couldn’t possibly be him.

The greenette was an amazingly good artist, using the sides of the pencils (and perhaps even different widths and such) to create such depth, foreshortening, shadowing…all the stuff the art teacher tried to hammer into their little brains but was a lot easier to talk about than to actually do, let alone do in a way that it all fit together and looked alright. They had been sitting under a tree to escape the bright sunlight and heat that day, and Takao could see where the light source was supposed to be, but much more impressive was the soft, blended shading on the side of his face that had been under a canopy of leaves. The soft sketch, despite being just that, somehow had the depth and emotion that a painting drawn of a lover might, not some (admittedly not) half-assed drawing of a mere classmate.

Caressing the picture, careful not to smudge the pencil, Takao suddenly was overwhelmed with emotions and had to sit down in the teacher’s swivel chair, hiding his blushing face between the crooks of his arms and desperately willing the growing love to stop and give him a break.

No such luck, he was way past the point of no return.

Oh well, it could always be worse.

*

~ Omake/Bonus~  
Walking down a wooden hallway blazing with sunset colors for god only knew what reason (it was a dream, Midorima had realized quickly, so there wasn’t much to do other than just go with the flow and see where it took him.), the greenette found himself entirely on auto-pilot, his feet apparently already sure of exactly where they wanted him to go.

At first he had assumed the old-fashioned back-drop was just his brain subconsciously building his dreams based on places he actually knew, but it seemed more and more like the entire thing was specifically _supposed_ to take place at Shutoku High, this fact concreted when he stopped right in front of his usual class, 1-C, and slid the door to find Takao waiting for him, the class looking the same as he had left it mere hours ago. 

The ravenette boy was sitting one row over from where they usually were so that he could see outside easier, his elbow resting on the desk-top and his cheek cradled in his palm, face slightly turned as if deep in thought. It was his expression that really caught Midorima’s gaze, though, face not exactly contemplative, but not quite sad or happy, either. A mix of them all, perhaps?

His light blue eyes were narrowed, though not in the aggressive way they did during a game, but like he was lost in thought. They looked…soft, warm, somehow, and that was the only way the greenette could think to describe his expression, too, _inviting._

Seeming to just now realize that the greenette was even there, Takao’s expression somehow softened even more as he turned to look at him, now leaning down so that he was resting his head on the desk, nestled between his arms, but still look up at him from under long eyelashes, the blue orbs seeming to say so much, although he opened his mouth and said something Midorima couldn’t quite hear.

“…What?” Midorima belatedly demanded only to realize that he had already woken up. Getting up out of bed and turning the overhead light on, the greenette sorted through his bag until he found his sketchbook, ripping out the old picture entirely and replacing it with a new, better one with the expression he dreamed of seeing, putting so much effort and love into the piece that even he barely recognized it when he was done. It wasn’t perfect, still, the edges a little hard without the burning sunlight blurring the edges just right, and it was one thing to picture the exact expression and another to draw it, but it was good. More than enough effort for his assignment, anyway. 

Perhaps he would see that expression again tomorrow.

 

If not, he had already burned it into his memory.

**Author's Note:**

> *super cheerful voice*
> 
> So, soso, first of all I /love/ how I was looking forward to today for legit over a month, planned all my prompts and knew that I was going to have to write them all beforehand because there was no way I was going to be motivated enough to write something every day, but then I procrastinated until the last minute so now I'm behind and don't even care anymore.
> 
> Secondly, I love how I actually wrote this only a little but late but then waited several days to post it just because I just hated how it turned out.
> 
> Love, love, love how I plan to only write a couple hundred words and then end up writing 2000, which of course I could have never done if, god forbid, I was actually trying.
> 
> LOL what am I even asking for reviews for again?? I don't even remember XDDDD


End file.
